The GOP Has Lost All Sense of "Right" and "Wrong"

Perhaps it was my Catholic upbringing and the principles that my parents raised their children by, but certain things were right and others were wrong and one did not embrace and engage in things that were wrong, especially if they were harmful to others. Once upon a time, a majority of Republicans appeared to follow such standards but not those in today's GOP, especially the party base. Ironically, this discarding of a sense of right and wrong began in earnest, in my view, when the party leadership began to allow Christofascists to infiltrate the party.  Most Christofascists wanted (i) to impose their religious beliefs and all, and (ii) raw political power.  Christ's gospel message was absent from their agenda.  Moreover, objective facts and science were the enemy since they threatened  challenged  the Christofascists' myth based beliefs and world view. Once the Christofascists held sway in the GOP, it was a small step to welcome white supremacists and neo-Nazis into the GOP. Donald Trump sensed this reality and promised these people the moon while disseminating endless lies, especially the "big lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from him.  Faced with an ugly party base, Republican elected officials had to decide if they would stand for what was right or side with Trump and what was wrong. As the impeachment trial unfolds, it is obvious that the vast majority of Republican senators will opt for the latter.  A column in the New York Times looks at this sad reality.  Here are highlights:

The first rule of politics is survival. This is a sad but pervading truth. We like to think that politicians are driven above all else by a sense of public service, a fundamental belief in the efficacy of government and in the defense of democracy.

Surely that is true of some. But we are ever reminded that too many elected officials’ primary impulse is the pursuit, acquisition and maintenance of power. . . . . So just like a pack of animals, they willingly, gleefully subjugate themselves to the one among them with the most power.

We see that playing out before our eyes in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection, a high crime of which he is clearly guilty.

All but six Republican senators voted that the trial itself was unconstitutional, even though constitutional scholars overwhelmingly disagree.

These politicians are still bowing to their alpha — Trump. In the early days of Trump’s presidency, Republicans in Congress either cozied up to him or sat in silence as his demagogy ensnared and entranced the Republican base.

For years — decades even — the conservative elite had alternately tolerated, recruited or activated racists, white nationalists and white supremacists. The elite have their own versions of these biases, but they thought themselves more erudite and tactical, not brash and brazen. They would use surgical tools of voter suppression, states’ rights campaigns and defense of marriage and the unborn to advance their goals in a way they saw as honorable.

But Trump saw the voters that the elites kept under the stairs, the ones they want to excite only around election time. He saw the resentment and rage in them. He saw that their voices had been muted and their tongues chastened.

He drew them out. He let them vent. He allowed them to see they were indeed the majority of the party. . . . . They grew loud and strong and he fed them red meat. They rampaged and he basked in the glow of the blaze.

Leader and followers had found each other. Now the traditional Republicans were on the run or on the ropes. Rather than become victims of the mob, they yielded to it. They tried to tap into it. They tried to grab the reins of it.

But this mob had only one leader: Trump. It was a cult of personality. It was a religion with one god. And that god is a jealous god. And vindictive. And mean.

Anyone who would dare forsake Trump runs the risk of being smote by him, and targeted by his minions. To diverge from Trump is essentially to abdicate power, and for a career politician that is a fate worse than death.

So, we watch the impeachment trial, with the impressive and clear presentation by the House impeachment managers of evidence that we already knew and some that we didn’t. We are reminded of just how heinous an episode that attempted insurrection was, that people were killed and injured.

[I]n the end, you have to ask yourself only one question to convict Trump: Would this attempted insurrection have happened without him? The answer is no.

For months Trump lied about the election and pumped into his followers the fallacy that something had been stolen from them and that they needed to fight with all they had to reclaim it. Then there are all the things he said on the eve of the assault on the Capitol, during it and even after it.

Trump refused to accept that his white power presidency was coming to an end, in part because of Black and brown voters in some key states, so he asked his white power patriots to come to his defense, to help overturn a fair election.

The Republicans in Congress are still afraid of their own base, their own constituencies in their own districts and states, because the Trump rot reaches down to the root. Their voters belong to Trump, therefore their futures are in Trump’s hands.

Trump is essentially running a defection minority government from political exile.

Republicans dare not cross him, even if they know that he is wrong, even if they know that what he did to incite the insurgency is wrong, even if they know that voting to convict him is right.

Right and wrong have taken on new meanings in this Republican Party: to be right is to side with Trump, unwaveringly, while the only wrong is to do the opposite.